The Adventures of Ichabod and Mr. Toad (1949)

Directed by Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney & James Algar. Starring (voices) Bing Crosby, Basil Rathbone, Eric Blore, Colin Campbell, Claud Allister, Campbell Grant, J. Pat O’Malley.

The last of Disney’s six anthology films from the 1940s, this double-header adapts a pair of literary sources: Kenneth Grahame’s children’s book “The Wind in the Willows” and Washington Irving’s short story “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow”. The “Willows” segment, with Thaddeus Toad, Esq. becoming obsessed with motorcars and getting arrested for stealing one, spins its proverbial gears a bit too often—the book is an unusual one for little ones (better appreciated by adults more receptive to its themes and writing style), and tough to translate, especially in truncated form where irony is favored over poetry. The “Sleepy Hollow” telling, however, is a cartoonish delight, full of exaggerated caricature designs and physical comedy, before taking a turn near the end toward frights, and delivering one of the most striking terrors in Disney’s vault with the phantasmic Headless Horseman, swinging sword and flaming pumpkin and all. Elevated by the smooth voicework from Rathbone and Crosby, narrating each of the tales. Early home video versions released each thirty-plus-minute story separately.

70/100